Angela Bovill, president and chief executive officer, Lutheran Social Services of New England

Sunday

Oct 20, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Lutheran Social Services of New England is a Worcester-based nonprofit provider of social services to children, refugees, the developmentally disabled and older adults. Ms. Bovill, 39, became president and CEO in January, after serving as the organization's chief operating officer, and before that as its chief financial officer. Prior to joining LSS in 2008, she spent more than a decade working in the corporate world. LSS has about 1,300 employees across New England.

How has your business and finance background influenced the direction LSS has taken under your leadership?

"When I came into the organization as a CFO in 2008, my first order of business was to shore up the financial viability of the organization long term, which I did a lot of already. We have also narrowed our focus.

"For example, about a year and a half ago we divested one of our programs in Worcester, the Lutheran Healthcare Center. We found a better partner who was able to do what we knew needed to be done. … That's the same kind of decision you would make in a business type of setting, where you really look at the core things that you're doing and decide whether you can do them better than anyone else and in a financially viable way long term."

What are your goals for the organization?

"Expanding social enterprise (using business strategies to advance social causes) is definitely one of my goals. It creates a level of ingenuity and innovation in the nonprofit sector that I think is really necessary. … The way that nonprofits are historically funded, you don't always have the extra layer of funding you would need for what I call 'research and development.' Social enterprise gives you access to some of the benefits you would get in the for-profit sector, but you would use them to innovate in the nonprofit space, which I think is really cool."

How will you create new revenue streams to get this extra level of funding that's typically unavailable to nonprofits?

"I'll give you an example; we do this now. In New Hampshire, it was clear to us after doing refugee resettlement for some time, that there was a large need for language interpretation services. We created a language interpretation service from a refugee business. And in many cases, it's the refugees themselves who are trained and end up being interpreters, so we were able to employ people in the process, as well as create a sustainable business. We have the largest contracts for interpretation services in the state of New Hampshire, for hospitals and the court system, and we're looking to expand that into the corporate space and possibly into other geographies long term. So the money that we're able to generate from that gets used to supplement the money we're getting from other sources so that we can do more work."

As far as LSS' finances, the organization used to run a deficit but now breaks even, according the your annual report. Is breaking even the best-case scenario for a nonprofit?

"No, it can't be. Last year was actually profitable; this year is profitable as well. We've done a lot of work to get rid of unnecessary assets — land and things that don't add value. I think profitability is sort of the word you're not supposed to say in the nonprofit sector, but it can't be. That's where investment comes from.

"Our employees who do the most critical work of all can't get the kind of income we want for them long term. We'll need to have other types of resources to be able to support our employees, to continue to be competitive in benefits and other areas, as well as being able to invest in the work itself.

"I do think it's possible. It means you have to really run a sound business, as bad of a word as I know that's supposed to be in the nonprofit world."

What are the hardest decisions you've had to make at LSS?

"The hardest decisions are and will continue to be: what we're not going to do. It would be the same challenge if you were in the for-profit sector, except in this sector, which makes this harder, they're individuals you're talking about. I think we all struggle with this, and I struggle with this all the time. You want to be able to help everybody, but if you're going to be really good, you can't do that. You have to stay focused."

Compiled by correspondent Lonnie Shekhtman

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